Counterfeit Relief Word on the Week 2nd March 2024.
Life in this life can be hard. It can offend our desire for fairness. Things happen that should never have been allowed. The apparent randomness of illness and accidents. Then, in some cases, the premature-ness of death.
To combat these thoughts many turn to the drug culture which has come into being in my lifetime. In my youth you may have heard of a chemist taking drugs. (Only doctors and chemists had access to drugs.) The contrast with today could not be more stark!
Popular today are Cocaine, Ecstasy, Cannabis and Heroin. We read of shiploads of new drugs of increased potency and reduced price being apprehended by the authorities. Users try to mix drugs to achieve a longer lasting effect at the same time minimising the negative effects.
It’s a murky business. When we sought permission at Grace Church to build on our old site in Pease Street the Drug Rehabilitation Centre next door required us to block all windows looking towards their premises. Apparently drugs are no respecter of persons and the wealthier clients would not wish to be seen attending the Centre!
The craving for more drugs ensures continuity of employment for ‘pushers’. They act as a conduit for the flow of drugs in their area. The drug users pay dearly and the debt incurred by them ensures loyalty of custom!
The other common form of escape is through alcohol. It is having a hard time competing with coffee! Pubs are closing down as traffic laws enforcing sobriety for the driver are imposed.
One friend who suffered from alcoholism had long periods off the drink but it eventually ended his life. He lived in the flats beside the church. He didn’t leave much behind but this poem is something of himself he expressed: –
May, June, July and August gone again but not memorable;
Save that I saw them go past the empty quays the rivers flow.
Look at the old house, outmoded, dignified, dark and untended;
With grass growing instead of the footsteps of life, the friendliness, the strife
In its beds have lain youth, love, age and pain.
I am something like that – lonely?
But not on my own.
Tony Curtis.
No one should underestimate the pulling power of an addiction. At the same time, it should not be overestimated. Tony knew he was not alone. He had Jesus. “I know whom I have believed and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day (2 Timothy 1 verse 12).